Health officials refute prosecutor's claim
Moscow health officials today confirmed that two victims of last week’s hostage crisis died of gunshot wounds, and that the rest were killed by a noxious gas used by Russian special forces.
They said a report quoting Mikhail Avdyukov, the chief Moscow prosecutor, as saying 45 were killed by gunfire was wrong.
The prosecutor’s office later confirmed the figure of 45 was incorrect.
On Saturday, Moscow’s chief doctor said 116 of the hostages died from the effects of the gas that Russian commandos released into the theatre before storming it early on Saturday to end the crisis.
He said one was killed by a gunshot wound. The doctors did not include in their count Olga Romanova, the woman who was shot dead early on in the crisis when she entered the theatre and confronted the Chechen rebels.
A Moscow Health Department spokeswoman today said two people died of gunshot wounds, not including the hostage-takers.
